Statistics show that Atlantic City would fall off New Jersey’s list of the state’s Top 10 most violent cities if its crime statistics were measured against the full amount of residents, workers and visitors in the resort each day rather than coming in second as it does now.
But the crime rates only consider residents. Atlantic City doesn’t even get the break other New Jersey shore resorts get in the state’s Uniform Crime Report, which counts seasonal residents as part of the overall population.
Atlantic City attracts short-term residents, not owners of summer homes. That means its crime statistics are based on a population of 39,504 and does not take into account nearly 25 million in visitors each year and about 20,000 employees who commute to the city each day.
Forty-nine towns in the state are classified as “resort municipalities” in the State Police report and are given an adjusted population that considers seasonal residents, according to a report in the Press of Atlantic City. The number of seasonal residents must be at least 25 percent of the year-round population.
Atlantic City has reached that number in the past, but in 2000, the number of seasonal residents dropped below 25 percent of the total population.
“We were told they won’t designate it as a resort community because the resident population doesn’t shift,” said Atlantic City Tourism District Commander Tom Gilbert to the Press. “There’s nothing that addresses the uniqueness of Atlantic City.”
The result was that in 2013—the latest year figures have been released for—Atlantic City was listed as the city with the second highest violent crime rate in the state behind Camden New Jersey. The city’s violent crime rate was 17.7 per 1,000 residents.
On a positive note, both the 2013 data and preliminary 2014 data show crime rates declining across the state.
